Video, Audio, Photos, & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo Declares State of Emergency in Eighteen Counties Following Winter Storm and Provides Update on COVID-19 Pandemic

Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo declared a state of emergency in eighteen New York counties as a strong winter storm continued to impact much of the state, dumping more than two feet of snow across a wide swath of the state, and updated New Yorkers on the state's progress during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

VIDEO of today's event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

AUDIO of today's event is available here.

PHOTOS of the event are available on the Governor's Flickr page.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Good morning. It's a pleasure to be with my colleagues who made it out this morning. Good for them. County Executive Pat Ryan, thank you very much. Thank you for the quick response and the partnership today. We have Mayor Steve Noble who's the mayor of Kingston. We have Marie Therese Dominguez who was our Commissioner of New York State Department of Transportation. Matt Driscoll who is Commissioner of the New York state Thruway Authority. It was a pleasure with that cashless tolling, good for you. 427 miles of cashless tolling, easier said than done, but Matt got it done. Mike Kopy who is our Director of Emergency Management, we have members of the National Guard, we have members of the state police. It's a pleasure to be with all of you.

Newsflash, it snowed a lot in New York State. We're going to declare a state of emergency in 18 counties across the state. State of emergency allows local governments more flexibility, state government more flexibility, to move faster. The 18 counties are: Capital Region, Southern Tier and Hudson Valley. They include Albany, Broome, Chenango, Columbia, Delaware, Dutchess, Greene, Montgomery, Orange, Otsego, Rensselaer, Saratoga, Schenectady, Sullivan, Tioga, Ulster and Washington. As of this morning we had snow all across the state. Here in Kingston we had about 15 inches, Albany about 21 inches, Binghamton in some places 2 1/2 feet in the Southern Tier in Binghamton. New York City about three to four inches; Long Island about four to six inches.

The Department of Transportation and the Thruway have done an excellent job in getting equipment out. Ulster County, the city of Kingston, likewise, they've done a great job, but we expect another four to five inches coming down before the storm leaves the state at about 1 to 2:00 o'clock this afternoon.

We have thousands of pieces of equipment out; 2,000 snowplows, 478 loaders, 3,500 Department of Transportation and Thruway personnel out. That's without County personnel, city personnel, town personnel, so there are a lot of people working very hard today to clear those roads.

If you do not have to be on the roads, please don't travel today. First it is dangerous the roads are dangerous especially a lot of the local roads are very dangerous. Secondly, the people who are trying to do the plowing and clearing the roads, the traffic is an obstacle to that. So, let them do their job and let's do it safely.

We have about 9,100 power outages that we're working through right now. We had about 600 automobile accidents and we had about two fatalities. So, it is a serious condition and again stay home if you can.

We're looking at total snowfalls, when all is said and done, Albany about 21 inches; Binghamton about 30 inches; Kingston here should be just about 15 inches; Buffalo got a break, about two inches; North Country got a break about three or four inches. New York City did not get hit that badly. Manhattan about 3 inches. Staten Island about four inches. Long Island: two inches in Riverhead and five inches in Stony Brook. So, it's really those 18 counties that we talked about.

Let me also talk about the COVID update for today. Today's day 292, believe it or not, of dealing with COVID. Two hundred and ninety-two days. We did 200,000 tests yesterday. We test more than any state in the country, and the COVID tests really give us firm data that we can react to. So, it's not anecdotal. It's not, "I think this, I heard this, my cousin said this." We test more than anyoneso we have more facts to base our knowledge on. Overall the state with the micro-clusters, and the micro-clusters are our high case load areas in the state, was about 5.3. That's actually good news. That's down from about 6.2. The bad news is 120 New Yorkers passed away yesterday, and they are in our thoughts and prayers. And I have been doing these numbers for 292 days, and the hardest numbers every day is the number of New Yorkers that we have lost. 120 New Yorkers, that's 120 families, that's mothers, and brothers, and children who are coming into the holiday seasons losing a member of their family. So, we remember them today. 6,147 hospitalized, that's up about 50 from yesterday. 1,095 in ICU, that's down about 3 from the day before. 611 patients intubated, that's about flat.

When you look across the state on the positivity level, which is an indicator of the spread in that area, the Capital Region is at 6.2. Central New York: 6.9. Finger Lakes: 8.2. The Finger Lakes are a real problem area in the state for us right now. Mid-Hudson: 6.1. Mohawk Valley is a problem: 8.03. New York City: 4.1. North Country: 4.4. Southern Tier: 2.3. The Southern Tier is a great turnaround story on COVID. They had real micro-cluster problems. They had real intense spread in small areas and they got it together, and they turned it around. 2.3 -- they are now the lowest in the state, the Southern Tier. Western New York: 6.5. That's also a flattening of Western New York. We saw Western New York going up for a long period of time. People got the word out, they took it seriously, and we're now seeing a flattening of that increase, and that's good news. Now, the Finger Lakes, Mohawk Valley. Statewide, that's 5.2 percent.

On COVID, let me say this and let me say a simple message that we can all agree with: we want to slow the spread, we want to avoid shutdowns, and together we can do it. Slow the spread. How do you slow the spread? We'resmart during the holiday season. It's a difficult situation. Holidays, people come together. There's a feeling of safety in your home, there's a feeling of safety when you're with your family, but it just takes one person who's infected and doesn't know it. Half the cases are from people who had no symptoms. So normally, holiday season, you're in your home, you're in your living room, Uncle Joe comes over, Aunt Nancy comes over, and they're your family. But Uncle Joe or Aunt Nancy could be infected and not know it, and you sit at a table and you have a nice meal and you have a good conversation, and the next day you could have issues.

So, we have to keep that in mind through the holiday season. But, if we're smart, we can slow the spread. If we slow the spread, we can avoid any more economicshutdowns. And that is the number one goal. Save lives, and avoid economic shutdowns. We just have to make it to the point where the vaccine hits critical mass.

And we're working like mad to get the vaccine out there, but we have to be smart. Slow the spread, avoid the shutdowns, together New Yorkers can do it. New Yorkers did the impossible in the Spring, the impossible. I had every global expert telling me there was no way that we were going to flatten the curve in the Spring, every expect. And you know what? New Yorkers did it. I believe in New Yorkers. We slow the spread; we won't have to shutdown anything. We take the vaccine, and we turn the page in life, and we get ready for 2021.

Meanwhile, today, please, I've been all around today, I'm telling you, it is not safe, and you shouldn't be out there if you don't have to be out there. And there are a lot of issues slowing down the plows, slowing down personnel who've been working now for multiple hours. And everybody's tired. Storm leaves this afternoon, let's clean it up, we'll move on.